Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/241

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BRITISH ETHNOLOGY
233

of the Submerged Forest period 22,000 years.

Now comes important evidence in support of the views advocated in this chapter; and it is so precise and condensed that its recorder, Dr. Keith, will pardon me if I quote his own words, as any abstract would greatly deteriorate their argumentative value.

"To what race of mankind did the Tilbury man belong? He is abundantly represented in the population of modern England. To what race, when we see this type of man in the flesh to-day, do we assign him? He and his successors are ancient British, if you will, but it is better to follow the example of the sharp-sighted Huxley and speak of a type rather than of a race. In 1862, twenty-one years before the Tilbury man was discovered, Huxley had recognized and described a form of prehistoric skull found in England under the name of the 'river-bed' type. The Tilbury cranium is of the river-bed type. The actual specimens described by Huxley are still in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, England; one is from an old bed of the River Trent, near Muskham; another is from a dolmen in Anglesey. Lately another of this type was discovered by the Rev. E. H. Mullins in the floor of a cave in Derbyshire, with bones of the reindeer, and other animals long extinct in England. Indeed, this specimen of the river-bed type from the Langwith cave deserves fuller mention.